Power Platform Community Forum Thread Details

I'm trying to copy the contents of the General Channel from one Team to another Team using the SharePoint "Copy Folder" step.

This works fine for the other 5 channels I have in my Team but the General Channel fails periodically with the following error:

"body": {
    "status": 400,
    "message": "To update this folder, go to the channel in Microsoft Teams Callstack..."

Before I go down the route of reading every item in the folder and recreating it individually, I figured I'd reach out to the community and see if others are experiencing the same and/or if someone can think of another solution.

The other 5 channels are copied like this:

The General channel was erroring out so I handle it separately with this step but still not always successfully.

Mike-

Categories:

Building flows

@MS-03101913-0

You're encountering a known issue when trying to copy the General Channel folder from one Microsoft Team to another using SharePoint's "Copy Folder" action. The error:

"To update this folder, go to the channel in Microsoft Teams"

is specific to folders created by Teams channels, especially the General channel, which behaves differently from other standard or private channels.

🔍 Why This Happens

The General channel folder is tightly bound to the Teams infrastructure.
Microsoft restricts certain operations (like renaming or copying) on this folder via SharePoint because it's managed directly by Teams.
Unlike other channels, the General channel is mandatory and has special metadata and permissions that make it less flexible for automation.

✅ Workarounds & Recommendations

1. Copy Individual Files Instead of the Folder

Since copying the folder fails, you can:

Use Power Automate to list all files in the General channel folder.
Loop through each file and copy it individually to the destination folder.

This avoids the folder-level restrictions and preserves the content.

2. Create a New Folder in the Destination Team

Manually or via automation, create a folder like General_Copy.
Copy files from the original General channel into this folder.

This keeps the structure clean and avoids conflicts with Teams-managed folders.

3. Avoid Modifying Teams-Linked Folders

As per Microsoft guidance , folders created by Teams channels (especially General) should not be renamed or moved via SharePoint. Instead, manage them through Teams directly.

🧪 Additional Tips

Ensure Check In/Check Out is disabled in the SharePoint library — this can interfere with file operations.
Use Graph API or Teams API if you need deeper control, though these also have limitations with the General channel.